Used with
permission of Maiken Naylor, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA,
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/sel/exhibits/stamps
Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) was a Scottish bacteriologist and physician. His accidental discovery of the mould penicillin in a culture of streptococcus revealed to him the antibacterial action of this organism which moreover was not harmful to living tissue. The Gabonese stamp displays the molecular structure of penicillin while commemorating the 50th anniversary of Fleming's discovery of antibiotics in 1928. Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel prize for medicine for this discovery.